Creative In Residence
The Creative in Residence Program (CIR) was designed to support and invest in artists who prioritize social justice in their creative work. CIR will support the economic growth and advancement of creatives while working simultaneously towards broader systems change that includes artists and creatives in community and economic advancement. Since its founding, the Equity | Impact Center has focused on designing viable systems-level interventions to support economic resilience in marginalized communities. The CIR program offers the resources and strategic guidance needed for artist entrepreneurs to develop a sustainable pathway for their creative work.
The Creative in Residence program offers:
- a financial award of $15,000
- space to work and create
- strategic expertise to increase entrepreneurial success
- tools and resources to execute strategic goals
- mentorship to elevate their craft
- a network to connect, learn, and collaborate with
This year, we have selected Diarra Imani as the 2024-2025 Creative in Residence!
Welcome 2024-2025 Creative in Residence, Diarra Imani.
Diarra Imani is an Emmy-nominated spoken word artist, educator, and breath coach for creative executives. Her career began in 2018 with The Youniversity, a creative wellness consultancy that developed from academics and research into holistic wellness and now envelops the full spectrum of her creative modalities. Diarra Imani has led nearly 1,000 students and over 500 educators, community members and families through programs like The Dropout Kidz, CurioCity Workshops, and The Basquiat Project: Where Have All the Wildflowers Gone? Her curricula emboldens creatives, connects outcasted learners and inner-city youth. Diarra Imani utilizes breath as a tool to unfold history, demystify religion, investigate politics, develop spiritual tools, and deepen self-love practices as a way to manifest one’s life.
As a yogi, educator and professional creative, she has traveled the globe to facilitate workshops centering healing and untraditional dialogue as anti-racist tools for community building and is certified as a Raja Yogi through YogaRoots on Location, Pittsburgh’s first and only anti-racist raja yoga 200HR training. Diarra Imani attended Hampton University in Virginia for a short term and transferred home to later graduate from Chatham University with a self-authored major: Women’s Entrepreneurship & Institutional Culture. Her studies, practices , and expertise has centered around human development, energy and healing work, as well as community bridging.
Diarra is an affirmation-based, neo-soul fusion of reggae blends, choral harmonies, and impactful poetic form. Diarra imparts her wisdom to willing listeners. Her performances and workshops are a composite of real-time stories and revelations, utilizing call and response songs to balance breath, and poetry to deliver deep messages. As an educator and artists, a first-generation Jamaican and black woman, she writes to fill the soul, to acknowledge the hurts and to heal the unspoken wounds we all carry as a member of this world.
Follow Diarri Imani to stay up-to-date on her work and progress.